novelraw Chapter 101: Yanari
Chapter 101: Yanari
[Maya]
…What?
That was my first thought.
It wasn't fear or shock. It was confusion that overcame me.
Bell was simply just standing there when the demon connected with their attack. My heart nearly popped out of my chest as I pictured Bell having a hole in his head.
But when the dust settled, I was wrong. Everything around me, the air, the atmosphere, the fabric of the universe itself — everything felt different.
Something had changed.
Bell's golden-white hair, which was the signature color for House Agnus darkened in an instant. It was as if a bucket of ink had spilled on a single sheet of paper because not a single strand on his hair had any light remaining.
It was total blackness.
His black eyes also changed. The black faded into murky red, then it glowed into an overbearing crimson.
The demon pulled his hand back and looked at it as if something was wrong with it.
It then looked back at Bell.
Something was different about Bell. There was no breath I could see. His presence had totally disappeared even though he was standing right in front of me.
It didn't feel like I was looking at Bell Agnus, the human being. Instead, it felt like looking at—
A weapon.
A living weapon.
The next moment, he vanished.
Not just him, Selgaath had also disappeared.
It was so fast that it didn't even feel like speed. It felt like teleportation, although I had a feeling that this wasn't the case.
Before I could even blink, the entire floor shook violently. The sound of multiple explosions ripped through the building one at a time.
Boom! Boom! BOOM!
Walls around me collapsed. Pillars crumbled. The pressure alone was pulling air out of my lungs.
It was just a brief split second, the slightest glimpse — but I saw it. Bell's hand was wrapped around Selgaath's face as he dragged the demon straight through multiple floors as if they were made of cardboard.
Boom-boom-BOOM!
Each impact was sending shockwaves that were tearing through the structure of the building.
Lightning erupted everywhere and I could only assume that it was coming from Bell because I knew that was his element. However, I wans't sure because I couldn't see the lightning being conjured.
The lightning was raw and uncontrolled, at least that's what it seemed like to me.
Each bolt of lightning that I saw would branch out wildly and snap across the walls, floors, and ceilings.
Am I standing in the middle of a thunderstorm?!
That's what it felt like.
As a bolt struck near me, I accidentally screamed, "AHH!" even though I was trying to keep myself hidden.
It didn't hit me but the heat of the bolt tingled across my face.
As I saw another lightning bolt traveling in my direction, I threw my hands forward and turned visible. An earth wall emerged in front of me just in time as the stray bolt smashed into it.
Thonk!
The barrier I formed had cracked instantly, not surviving even a single attack.
My heart was pounding so hard that it was hurting.
Fear.
Yes. That's what I was feeling at the moment.
Even though I had wanted to see more, I was too scared to remain where I was. So I immediately turned and began running for my life, exerting as much mana as I could to propel me away from the thunderstorm.
As I was running, I had to dodge parts of the building that were collapsing.
Behind me, I could hear the building groan as the sound of metal screeching, stone collapsing, and mana going completely out of control sounded nonstop.
Don't look back! Don't look back!
Although the temptation to see what was going on was still present, that wasn't worth my life.
Using my earth magic, I had to clear a part of the entrance that had caved in on itself. Bursting outside, I stumbled, gasping for air.
Hands on the ground, I quickly picked myself back up and continued running.
"Haa… haaaa, haa~" I breathed as I turned around and looked up.
The sky was glowing.
Squinting my eyes, I could see a massive surge of mana spiraling upwards as well as two blurry figures.
It was Bell and the demon he was holding.
Is he flying?!
High above the building that was collapsing, lightning was constantly crackling around him as he had one hand gripped tightly around Selgaath's head.
The demon was fighting back, I could see that. His claws teared at Bell, his demonic energy constantly flared, and his limbs never still.
None of it mattered.
Bell didn't react to anything as if he couldn't feel any of the pain or was taking any damage.
Not even a flinch.
Bell didn't even look at the demon in his hands as he continued to go higher and higher.
Then — he stopped ascending.
For a brief moment, everything went silent. The lightning seized. Bell looked down at the demon in his hand, still trying to escape from his grasp.
And as soon as that brief moment ended, he turned and began heading straight down.
I couldn't even breathe as I watched the momentum of the two plummeting towards the ground get faster and faster as gravity aided the path.
A violent dance of lightning was lighting up the sky, creating the illusion that a giant lightning bolt was about to strike the ground.
"Oh my god," I muttered in disbelief.
Bell was going to drive the two of them straight into the ground at a speed that was so fast, I was sure that nothing would survive the impact.
Their bodies began to glow and they were coated in this layer that looked like fire, leaving a trail behind them.
Instinctively, my body turned on its own and began to run. I needed to get as far away from the landing zone!
❖ ❖ ❖
[Bell]
I found myself in this void.
I can't see anyone or anything. There are no sounds other than my breathing.
"Where am I?" I pondered out loud as I began walking, turning my head side to side as I tried to catch a glimpse of anything else in the void with me.
It didn't even feel like there was ground beneath my feet, yet I was able to walk.
When I looked up, there was no sky above. The darkness stretched endlessly in every direction.
"Hello!" I screamed into the void.
It didn't echo.
Light itself didn't exist where I was.
Even my own presence felt… muted? Was that the right word?
I walked. And walked. And walked.
One step. Then another. Over and over and over and over.
Time felt strange here. I couldn't tell how long I'd been moving. A few minutes? Hours? Days? Maybe even longer.
My thoughts themselves felt distant and disconnected.
"Where am I even heading?" I scoffed as I took a seat, crossing my legs.
Tilting my head, I began trying to remember what I was doing before I arrived at this strange place.
Closing my eyes, it took a while for the first image to pop up.
"The fight. Right. I was fighting."
Then I stopped for a few seconds before asking myself, "Who? Who was I fighting?"
I don't know how long it took but I eventually found the answer as the color purple appeared in my mind.
"Selgaath. Right. I was fighting the demon Selgaath."
Tapping my index finger on my thigh, I was trying to recall what happened afterwards.
Did I win? Did I lose?
Either way, what happened during the fight with that demon that led me here?
A name appeared after a while. "...Yanari. Who's that again? Yanari. Yanari."
Then a lightbulb appeared above my head as I remembered that Yanari was the name of my artifact.
The moment I recalled who Yanari was, the darkness around me stirred as if it were a pot of soup and someone was spinning the liquid with a large ladle.
"What's going on?" I wondered as I stood up and watched the black move around.
Then more and more pieces of the puzzle began to rush into my brain, causing me to collapse to one knee.
"Oh, right. I'm in the world of a novel."
Another sting in my head.
"That shitty god brought me here as punishment for my comments."
Another sting. This one grew until it felt like someone had split my head open.
"Yanari was an artifact that didn't belong to Arthurr. In the novel, it didn't belong to anyone. It was destroyed because of how scary it was."
What was Yanari's ability again?
Then it felt like a thousand swords stabbed into my skull.
"...Right," I uttered. "Yanari's ability is that in exchange for losing control of my body, I inherit the strength of its original owner."
Who was its original owner?
"Who…? Who…?"
"Oh…"
That's right.
I remembered who the original owner was.
"...the first demon king. The one who started the war against mankind."
❖ ❖ ❖
[Diana]
It hit me all at once.
The connection between Bell and me had been all over the place. I knew that he was fighting the demon and what he was feeling during certain moments. There was even a timeframe where his location vanished completely, and I had to calm myself down because I could still feel our connection, so he was still alive.
But at the moment, I could tell where he was — but something about him. It felt empty. It was as if all the contents inside the cup that is Bell Agnus were poured out.
"...Bell?" I whispered as I stopped attacking the demonic monsters in front of me.
Although I had won the competition against Ichiko, we were still outside killing as many as we could. We had somehow found ourselves in a group with other students, most of them First Class.
"...Bell?" I whispered again.
The world around me hadn't changed. Monsters were still being slain and students were trying their best to save others who were in danger.
But — something inside my chest had dropped. And it dropped violently.
It was like an anchor attached to my heart had been thrown to the ground, nearly pulling my body along with it.
Everything that made Bell, well — Bell, was gone. His emotions, his presence, his life force, even his warmth for me that had grown over the Winter break, all of it vanished in an instant.
It reminded me too much of that day.
The time that I had stared into the emptiness that was underneath the layers of him. I recalled how I lost myself, the cold, the silence, the strange trance that I was in for some time.
As I backed up a step, I began uttering, "No. No, no… no."
If it wasn't for the fact that I could still feel his location, I would've assumed that Bell had succumbed to the demon.
Ichiko turned around and saw me uttering to myself.
She had something snarky to say at first but as I took more steps backward, her brows furrowed.
"Diana? What's wrong?" she asked as she tilted her head and dodged an attack.
She began approaching me.
I didn't answer her question.
I couldn't answer it. My lips refused to split apart.
The connection I had with Bell wasn't severed, but whatever it was that I could sense their location, it wasn't him anymore.
"Diana, don't tell me that you're getting scared because—" Ichiko didn't finish her sentence because I turned around and ran.
"Where are you going?" one of the students in the group asked.
Ichiko chased after me and shouted, "Diana! Where are you going?! What's happening?!"
Ignoring her, my legs moved faster than my mind could process. I was exerting every last drop of mana I had left in me, ignoring the fact that it was causing my thirst for blood to rise.
My heart was pounding harder with every step and it sounded like wardrums.
Ichiko caught up to me and was running beside me.
She continued asking me things, but I was unable to make out any words coming out of her mouth.
It felt like my sense of hearing itself had turned off or was being muffled by my own heartbeat.
Then, as I got closer to where I knew Bell was, a rush of sounds erupted in my ear.
Thunder.
Then came the pressure. It hit me so hard that I nearly stumbled, but I continued running forward.
Step after step, I ran.
Then, I skidded to a stop. On instinct, as I felt that his location was up in the sky, I lifted my head.
Immediately, my blood turned to ice.
High above us, even though his hair color had changed and there was something scary about his eyes, I could tell that it was Bell.
His arm was extended towards the ground and in his hand was a demon that was desperate to free itself.
The two of them were plummeting and a streak of lightning and fire was tearing through the sky. It was like I was watching a meteor about to strike the earth.
My hands flew to my mouth and my surroundings immediately turned to ice.
"Bell!" Ichiko screamed beside me. "No… no no no—"